简·奥斯丁与罗曼蒂克诗人
We have never seen anything like this before in Austen’s work.The world of the early novels is one of clearly defined roles—daughter, father, neighbor, suitor. (Elizabeth Bennet’s relationship with her father may be light-hearted, but it is unmistakably a father-daughter relationship nonetheless.) This lack of ambiguity is not oppressive, but rather allows characters to understand how they are situated relative to one another and to respond accordingly. Indeed, it is part of what makes for the simplicity and clarity of emotions in Austen’s early work. In the authoritarian world of Mansfield Park, however, the lack of relational ambiguity is oppressive. Their rigidly prescribed roles as Sir Thomas’s sons and daughters (different roles for each sex, and for the older son as distinct from the younger) are exactly what three of his children rebel against. As for Fanny, her position does entail some initial ambiguity, but that very uncertainty about her role and her relationships makes for a debilitating anxiety, and in any case the Bertrams soon obligingly imprison her in her long-term position as “the lowest and last” (184).
在简·奥斯丁之前的作品中，我们从未见到过这样的事情。早期小说的世界中角色是明确定义的，要么是女儿，要么是父亲，要么是邻居，要么是求婚者（这几个角色中的一个）。伊丽莎白·班内特与她父亲的关系可能很轻松，但这无疑是父女关系。缺乏模棱两可不会让人感到苦恼，而是使角色能够理解彼此之间的相对位置并做出相应的反应。的确，这是使奥斯丁作品中的情感简单明了的部分原因。但是，在曼斯菲尔德庄园中关系的模棱两可（不明确）的缺乏是令人苦恼的。他们严格规定的角色如托马斯爵士的儿子和女儿（每种性别的角色不同，大儿子与小儿子的角色也不同），正是他的三个孩子所反抗的。至于范妮，她的位置最初确实需要一些不明确，但关于其角色和人际关系的不确定性使人感到焦虑不安，而且无论如何，伯伦特一家很快就亲切地将她长期限制在“最低和最后”的位置上。
Of course, the issue of substitution, as explored in the previous chapter, complicates the picture relative to her relationship with Edmund. But there is an important distinction to be made. Fanny, having partly substituted Edmund for William, feels emotions for him that hover ambiguously among those of a cousin, a sister, and a lover, but precisely because she knows that one in her position must conceal those last two forms of feeling, her relationship with Edmund itself, her actual behavior toward him, is, for the great bulk of the novel, well defined, stable, and conventional. That is exactly why Edmund is completely unaware, once he finally develops amorous feelings of his own toward her, that those feelings have long been reciprocated. For some nine years, he is the kind, patronizing older cousin, she the adoring, obedient younger one. We might think of them as closer to brother and sister, but they do not; in Mansfield, everyone knows their place. Only toward the end of the novel does Edmund call Fanny “sister”(367), and only at the very end, after the close of the dramatized part of the narrative, do the cousin-siblings also become lovers and spouses.
当然，之前章节探讨的替代问题使得她与埃德蒙关系的描述变得复杂。但是要做一个重要的区分。（因为）爱德华部分替代了威廉，范妮感到自己对于爱德华来说有时是表亲，有时是妹妹，有时是爱人，他对她的情感在这几者中不清晰地徘徊，但是恰恰因为她知道自己所处的位置必须掩盖后两种形式的感情，所以她对埃德蒙的实际行为在小说中占了很大比重，她与埃德蒙关系本身是被清晰定义的，稳定的而传统的。这就是为什么埃德蒙完全没有意识，一旦他最终显露出自己对安妮的爱恋之情，那些感情早就得到了回报。在大约九年的时间里，他是个善良的、自认为高人一等的表亲，她是个受人爱戴、顺从的年轻人。我们可能认为他们更接近与哥哥和妹妹，但事实并非如此；在《曼斯菲尔德庄园》每个人都知道自己的位置。直到小说的结尾，埃德蒙才将范妮称为“妹妹”，并且直到最后，在叙述的戏剧化部分结束之后，表亲也才成为恋人和配偶。
Still, Austen’s exploration of substitution and its culmination in this most disturbingly ambiguous of relationships clearly gave her ideas. The suggestion with which Mansfield Park ends becomes the one with which Emma, a novel so different in most every other respect, begins. But the discoveries of the earlier novel were not the only thing that gave Austen ideas about ambiguous relationships. Once again, she would have found them already explored and elaborated in Wordsworth.
尽管如此，简·奥斯丁在这种最摇摆不定地不明确的关系中对替代的探索以及其最终达到的结果清楚地表明了她的想法。《曼斯菲尔德庄园》结尾的建议变成了《爱玛》的建议，尽管这部小说在开始的其他各个方面都与《爱玛》大相径庭。但是，关于不明确关系的思想不止是在简·奥斯丁早期的小说中能够发现。她会发现它们已经在华兹华斯诗中被探索和阐述过了。
（翻译：Freesia）
